Why falling house prices can be a bad thing

“… An analysis released this week by the property firm Savills spelled out just one of the reasons why [a downturn in property prices could be a bad thing].

A property downturn could, it estimated, reduce the number of affordable homes being built by a quarter. When prices fall, developers’ profits shrink and they retreat from the market. And when developers stop building, promises to stop future buyers being locked out of the market by building 300,000 new homes a year aren’t worth the manifestos they were written on.

What was striking about the former cabinet minister Oliver Letwin’s recent report on land banking – the much-hyped practice of developers buying up land and sitting on it while it rises in value – was that he found precious little evidence of it happening. What he did find was developers building on their sites painfully slowly, over the course of several years, because they won’t do anything that causes neighbourhood property prices to fall. A glut of for-sale boards going up all at once means buyers can take their pick and haggle hard over prices. This may be exactly what first-time buyers need but it’s what developers are primed to avoid.

The problem with relying on the market to provide is that the market works to ration the one thing voters hope mass housebuilding programmes will deliver. And that’s in good times; imagine what happens when everyone is scrabbling frantically to protect their investment in a downturn. …”